


In Happiness and in Grief

by goldheart



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Angst, Canon Compliant, Crossover, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Orpheus and Eurydice, Post-Canon, Post-Episode 12, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 13:45:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9443807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheart/pseuds/goldheart
Summary: This the greatest performance he will ever give. Not the record-breaking free skate at the Grand Prix. Not the exhibition at the gala. Not the carefully choreographed and meticulously practiced routine they’d prepared as a substitute for their first dance. Effortlessly, his mind draws new steps for his plea, guiding him in a path that follows his tears, leaching colour from his memories and dousing them in the inconceivable pain that buries itself in a man with the entire world ripped from his fingertips. Step sequence: Please. Combination spin: Listen to me. Spiral: I’ll give anything. Quadruple flip: I’m begging you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [Muspell](http://muspellssynir.tumblr.com) for beta'ing. You're the best.

It starts, as all the best fairy tales end, with a wedding.

For Yuuri, life seems to have gone along with that storybook ending. He has a score of new friends, the pride of a silver medal with the promise of a gold, renewed determination, and the impossible: Viktor Nikiforov facing him with that incredibly soft look in his eyes and Yuuri’s ring on his finger, vows of _forever_ dripping from honeyed lips. They kiss, and, surrounded by the ecstatic (and perhaps overzealous, in some cases) cheers of their friends and family and the setting sun, Yuuri believes that this is the perfect indication of the rest of their lives. He has everything he has ever wanted.

He should have known better than to believe in fairy tale endings.

Yuuri expects the reception to go as any party he’s ever been to with Viktor has: With every glass of champagne someone will press in his hands, every moment that goes by as the alcohol saturates his blood a little more, his dancing with Viktor will get a little wilder. Chris will inevitably bring out the stripper pole. Yuuri hopes someone will stop him before it gets that far; tonight’s a night for playful embarrassment, but not _that_ much embarrassment.

Instead, Yuuri stays completely, devastatingly sober all the way through the night.

It happens in a flash. As they’re walking out to the parking lot, herded towards the back of a limo to whisk them away to the reception, Makkachin is distracted by a squirrel across the street. He bolts, and Viktor unthinkingly runs after him, calling after the poodle with laughter in his voice.

He doesn’t see the car coming. Yuuri does.

* * *

 Grief is all-consuming.

It leaves Yuuri in a state of near catatonia in the chair by Viktor’s bedside. How can a day go from being the most wonderful day of his life to something so heavily battered with pain and darkness? Just like that, the rug’s been ripped out from under him, sending him sprawling to the floor face-first. He can’t think. He can’t breathe. The best part of his life is slipping out of his grasp with every uneven beep of the machines, and what can he do? Nothing.

The heart monitor flatlines, screaming at him.

No. There is _something._

He knows what he has to do.

He steals out of the hospital room like a man possessed, evading the sizable crowd of the wedding party in various states of emotional distress and disappearing into the evening. He chases a rumour, a whisper in the dark of old gods and old rituals that have always failed. But Yuuri has never been one to quit in any aspect of his life: Skating, enduring the media storm, and keeping Viktor Nikiforov by his side. He will not quit today. With steady hands, he paints a lyre on the inside of his wrist, grabs his skates, and departs for the nearest rink.

Yuuri has never trusted in his abilities. This is why his throat closes up before competitions, why he can’t keep from trembling in the kiss and cry even after a perfect run. However, he cannot afford failure now, cannot spare a moment of his concentration to panic. The rink is barred to him by mortal means, but the doors bow under the force of his emotions and the symbol painted on his wrist. He hardly knows where he’s going until his skates hit the ice.

The scrape of his blades against the ice is pure passion driven by vulnerability and suffering, winding its story into the crisp, heavy air of the empty rink. Each outstretched hand and bend at the waist seem to draw moisture itself from the sky outside as if it, too, mourns with the lone man wandering to the Forbidden Place.

This is the greatest performance he will ever give. Not the record-breaking free skate at the Grand Prix. Not the exhibition at the gala. Not the carefully choreographed and meticulously practiced routine they’d prepared as a substitute for their first dance. Effortlessly, his mind draws new steps for his plea, guiding him in a path that follows his tears, leaching colour from his memories and dousing them in the inconceivable pain that buries itself in a man with the entire world ripped from his fingertips. Step sequence: Please. Combination spin: Listen to me. Spiral: I’ll give anything. Quadruple flip: I’m begging you.

He skates for hours. Years. Minutes. Eons. Days. Seconds. He does not tire. Time is nothing in Hades and nothing to him. Nothing matters but this when he gambles with more than his life in the scrape of blades against ice grown impossibly colder, impossibly harder. There are no more boards around this rink. To the thrones of the King and Queen of the Dead he takes his dance, where they gaze upon him with cold steel in their hearts and wilted black roses scattered at their feet.

Silence has followed Yuuri through the glade. When he opens his eyes, daring to gaze around him, he sees that even the shades have paused, anticipating his plea. Chest heaving, his eyes watery with his tears, he begins anew.

Now, there is no rink, no blades on his feet, but he skates anyways before the crown of the Underworld. His routine conveys simply this: The first image of ethereal silver hair and dark fabric, watched religiously through a television screen. The heartbreak of an offered photo, a catalytic night of memories he does not have, save for the pictures he’s seen. A steady hand surrounded by the steam of his family’s onsen, inexplicably extended to him in invitation. A frown of puppylike confusion, exclamations of _Vkusno!_ and _Wow!_ at the most appropriate and inappropriate of times, the drawn out ‘u’ in Yuuri’s name, his steady hands as he slid the ring on Yuuri’s finger in Barcelona... The break of his voice on _I didn’t expect Katsuki Yuuri to be such a selfish human being._ The inexplicably heavy stream of his tears when Yuuri had announced his retirement. The _I love you_ loudly proclaimed in every ending gesture of Yuuri’s free program. His hands around Yuuri’s waist, presenting him to the heavens in pride during their exhibition skate. The promise of a gold medal placed second to the gold on their fingers. His smiles. His laughter. _I do._

In the end, Yuuri’s tears are mirrored on the stony face of spring trapped beneath the ground, her colourless eyes shimmering with his grief and his longing and his fury. His arms drop to his side from his finishing, begging pose, weighed heavily by exhaustion and hope.

'What do you wish from me, Katsuki Yuuri?' she asks, her voice soft like the petals of a budding flower.

He looks at the king, expression unchanged on his stony throne, and attempts to employ his own voice. However, words have often failed him in favour of what he can convey with his body. Anything could pass his lips: The very few words that went unsaid between them. Everything that Viktor did that made Yuuri want to press his face into his hands with embarrassment, yet everything that he would absolutely not change for all the world. Anything to make Hades understand that his world has been shattered into chaos and disaster.

Instead, all he can say, with more anguish and eloquence than Apollo himself has written into his most heartbroken poetry, is _‘Please.’_

Persephone's hands clutch at Hades's arm, pink nails digging into his hardened flesh. 'Husband. Give him what he desires.'

Hades stares at Yuuri for minutesdaysseconds. His hands twitch. His face softens.

'So be it. Turn, servant of Apollo, and your Viktor will follow behind you.'

Yuuri's thanks lodges in his throat. He nods instead, and faces the darkness stretching out before him.

'Follow the path, and only the path; you will know it. Tarry not. Look not back before the light of day touches your face, or you shall lose all you have come for and be barred from the Kingdom until Death claims you, once and for all.'

Yuuri closes his eyes, lashes trembling with moisture.

Silence.

'Go,' Hades bids, and Yuuri begins to walk.

One step. Two steps. Three.

His breathing, his feet crunching in the gravel, and his thundering heartbeat roar in his ears. The path is long, steep, and winding. Surely, he would hear Viktor’s delicate steps behind him, Viktor’s breath labouring a little from the trek to the surface, Viktor’s clothing whispering with his movements.

Silence.

Yuuri tries to fill it, his voice weaving through the stale air with the desperation of a parched man with a bottle of water dangling just out of reach. Now his voice wavers with uncertainty, but even so, he talks about Makkachin waiting faithfully at his master’s side, about how Yuri had fussed over his hair when he thought Yuuri wasn’t looking until Otabek had swooped by and commented on how nice it looked. How Yuuri had noticed that Viktor was dangerously close to over-rotating his quad lutzes in practice, but it doesn’t really matter now, does it, because _you just have to focus on recovering now, okay? Everything will be fine. I promise._

Silence.

‘You have been tricked, little piggy,’ that nagging voice called Anxiety whispers in his ears, setting his hands to trembling. ‘Viktor’s not following you. There’s no one there.’

His breath catches, rasping and scraping up his throat with wet, ragged inhales and exhales.

He thinks he sees the blackness brightening to grey.

The noise of nothing, it’s all-consuming, and he cannot bear it, cannot wait, not with his heart in his throat and his breath gone all funny, the edges of his vision blurring with the impending force of his panic attack.

_You are alone. You will always be alone._

He turns

and

**looks.**

The smile on Viktor’s face says _you are amazing_ and _you can do anything, Yuuri_ and _you showed me the meanings of life and love that I had forgotten_ and _of course I forgive you, thank you for trying._

‘I love you,’ he whispers.

Yuuri desperately lunges for Viktor, reaching for the lapels of his wedding jacket, the curl of his tie, his hands—anything. Dextrous fingers grasp fruitlessly at thin air, then Viktor is gone.

Yuuri’s haunting wail echoes through the uncaring Russian night.

* * *

_I take you in husband_

_to be with you always_

_in wealth and in poverty_

_in disease and in health_

_in happiness and in grief_

_from this day until death separates us._

**Author's Note:**

> I got the wedding vows from [this site.](http://www.seiyaku.com/seiyaku/vows/russian.html) Please let me know if they are incorrect so I can change them if necessary! 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at [russianfeya.tumblr.com](http://russianfeya.tumblr.com).
> 
> The author is a slut for comments and will soak yours up like a sponge with a smile on her face :D


End file.
